It was addressed to "Mike Seay, Daughter Killed in Car Crash."
Strange as that sounds, the mail reached the right guy. Seay's daughter Ashley, 17, was killed in a car crash with her boyfriend last year...
"I’m not a big OfficeMax customer. And I wouldn’t have gone there and said anything to anybody there about it [the car crash]. That’s not their business," Seay, 46, told the Los Angeles Times in a phone interview Sunday.Should this happen to me, my mail will probably be addressed to 'Lem, the chronic lost iPod costumer.'
In a statement, OfficeMax said the mailing "is a result of a mailing list rented through a third-party provider" and offered its apologies to Seay.
What 'fun fact' would your mail contain ? ... if you care to share.
20 comments:
Maybe it's just me, but I don't see "Daughter Killed in Car Crash" as a fun fact.
I think that's pretty horrendous, myself.
But it is robot generated, though I am trying to figure out what list that might have come from.
Maybe it was a person in one of those work from home scams that pays for any name lifted off the internet. Only the person lifted the modifiers.
One might think the Seays mailman would have caught it and "lost" it.
Racists!
Wait. Wrong topic?
Crack snail mail.
Stands to reason, he is French, you know.
The big problem with big data. This isn't going to get better, it's going to get worse.
I worked at a financial institution many years ago when computerized data bases were just coming into play. In order to avoid embarrassing moments when calling someone we would often put a field that said....husband/wife/spouse deceased. That way we wouldn't call and ask for Mr. Jones and then have Mrs. Widow Jones either fall apart or scream at us that her husband was DEAD!!!!! God DAMN it!!!!
Unfortunately, the field for deceased accidentally got onto a mailing merge and the salutation line went out something like this incident.
"Dear Mrs Jones husband deceased,"
"Dear Mrs Jones do not call this person" .......and so on
Wow. Did we have some upset customers!!!!!
The IT department changed it from a merge-able field into a non active text/note section.
Live and learn.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't see "Daughter Killed in Car Crash" as a fun fact
I've done a poor job linking it to this
My bad.
Very freaky and inappropriate.
Would write to OfficeMax and let them know they just lost a customer.
Here's some more freaky.
I was checking out whether there are any alternatives for me to Obamacare exchange policies. I put some of my personal information online in order to check. 30 seconds later, phone call from broker. Told her to never call back, I'd call them if I was interested. Continuing daily calls ever since.
Ahhh, much clearer, Lem. Thanks. I should've assumed the sarcasm!
Ahhh, much clearer, Lem. Thanks. I should've assumed the sarcasm!
It's the difference between commenting and blogging. I'm getting there slowly, slower than slow.
thanks for coming. btw.
My pleasure, whenever I have time. And you and your coterie are doing a great job. Best blog site on the Net!
Would write to OfficeMax and let them know they just lost a customer.
Would sign the letter "Mike Seay, Never Shopping at Your Sorry Ass Store Again"
Who you fucking calling a... *looks up coterie* ...oh.
In the earlier post where a special someone momentarily went feral, the words, "we are stardust we are golden" made me think, "Why can I not ever tell the difference between "gold" and "California" in asl except by context? Why is what I see endlessly confusing for me? Causing me to look at how the word is said multiple ways, way 1, way 2, in five different dictionaries and they all run into each other, the signs do,cross over each other, use each other's finger configuration and shaking out while pulling away action, and I go, "Oh. Confirmed. That's why."
+ silver same thing 'cept different with an "s"
+ copper = metal + spell it
+tin = metal + spell it
+ bronze = metal + spell it
So that's a lot of looking up all due to just one idle comment.
Mine would be
Stabmaster Icepick Chew Toy
This is what's happening with your health records.
Eh, of course it must have been gut-wrenching for the poor man, but at the same time--it's not like it was deliberate. Weird computer shit happens, you know? Can't go around getting upset at stuff that hurts when there's no malicious soul behind it.
One time when my husband I were first dating, he got some mail addressed to Susan [his last name]. I was pretty upset because he'd told me he wasn't married and I assumed it was an ex-wife. Then it occurred to me to ask his mother's name.
Weird computer shit happens, you know?
What I'd like to know is why in the hell is 'daughter killed in car crash' a relevant data point in any publicly-usable database? How does it honestly create a better customer profile?
That's the problem, Pants, not whether is was deliberate or not. It's that we've decided that everything is open source.
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